Primal Rage
DOS - 1995
Also available on: 3DO - Amiga - Game Gear - Genesis - Jaguar - SEGA 32X - SEGA Saturn
Description of Primal Rage
Chris McMullen of the Games Domain says it all about this excellent conversion of a hit coin-op fighting game: "Primal Rage has the standard plot.. you know the stuff.. 'wizard' etc.. blah blah 'parallel dimension' 'imprisoned gods'. Hardly remarkable, but then again, these stories are rarely read more than once, and usually only provide the flimsiest of reasons for the combatants to lay into each other with great gusto.
But Primal Rage does have that 'spark of originality' that is so hard to find in many games. Gone are the scantily clad amazon women and muscle bound men, and in their place are seven of the most fearsome dinosaurs and and apes this side of a Michael Crichton film, ready to fight with tooth and claw for world domination (what else?), taking place over seven different locations around New Urth.
The contenders range from Sauron, a flesh hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex, to Blizzard, an ape from the frozen wastes, each defending their own territory. Once you choose your character, you will be pitched into a fearsome battle, as each dino makes their bid for survival. And there's blood. Lots of it. Blood! Blood! ahem Sorry.
The graphics are also particularly good. While there is no Super VGA mode (which would invitably slow down the game), the backdrops and animation are more than adequate. The fighter's movements were captured from a number of stop motion 3d models, carefully created, and then moved into position. For example, to get a punch movement, a model's (built on a wire frame) arm would be moved, just a little, then a capture would be taken of the model. The arm would be moved a little more, and captured again, till the whole sequence was completed. Anyone who's seen Jason and the Argonauts will know what I mean. But don't be fooled.. the animation is very smooth, and hardly jerky.
Each character is, as is now standard, is equipped with their own set of special moves, which inflict extra damage upon the luckless opponent. These too, manage to be distinctly out of the ordinary, and although there are the standard fireball moves, each fighter is equipped with around 7 unique special moves. In addition to the range of lethal special moves, each player is also equipped with three fatalities (as has become the norm since Mortal Kombat), which allow you to finish your opponent in a number of vicious ways, all sure to corrupt the minds of gamesplayers everywhere. These range from flesh eating, to incinerating your opponent, or tearing various organs out.
Gameplaywise, Primal Rage measures up pretty well. There's the usual mix of punches and kicks, or rather, bites and slashes. It's not too hard to pull off decent combos, and the moves are pretty easy to access, even on a keyboard. The moves themselves are pretty imaginative, although there are a couple of dragon punch rip-offs included. Hits do feel like they connect, although the characters don't seem to have quite as much weight as MK2, or Street Fighter 2. Another point, although this can be put down to the arcade machine, is that after conquering all the lands, the player has to take on the all the other fighters together, in the Final Battle. This is an original idea, but I wouldn't have minded a boss character as well. A skeletal creature, perhaps?
All the moves are there, including all the bonus games from the arcade. Plus, there are a number of bonuses, including a tournament mode, and access to all the bits of the game that arcade owners only ever got to see. TWG have managed to produce a game that blows away every other Rage conversion, and most of the PC Beat-em up market. "
If you like beat 'em ups, particularly Mortal Kombat games and their fatalities, you will probably like this arcade-perfect conversion as well.
Review By HOTUD
External links
Comments and reviews
Splinta^ 2023-09-29 3 points
Here you go gentalman :-D
Took me all of 5-10 minutes to figure it out, its been awhile since I did this last.
Download here - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l5rld45k13lsntgt3gyp3/DOSGames.7z?rlkey=tklls8xay3q0kwloh5nn4m1bu&dl=0My DOS
My DOS GAMES Cataloge I created
If this is ok MYAbandonware
Splinta^ 2023-09-29 2 points DOS version
I'll get it working for you boys, Just wait here a minute :-D
J.D. 2023-01-22 2 points DOS version
Primal Rage was such a big deal when it came out in arcades in 1994, it was the closest thing to rival Mortal Kombat at the time, with strong violence, gore and even fatalities. the publisher was banking on this game to be as huge as MK, it has merchandise like action figures, comics and of course the game was ported to every system under the sun at the time. if only "Warner Interactive" didn't get cold feet and pulled the plug on it right after "Primal Rage II" was in development.
i never played it in arcades, but i do remember the iconic cover with "Blizzard" the king-kong like creature. who is basically the game's mascot, and played a bit PS1 version as a kid, and a demo version on DOS from compilation disc with over 200 shareware games. it's one of the few old school fighting games that i actually enjoyed playing to this day (mostly with friends). the best version of this game is a bit challenging, since every version has pros and cons, obviously the arcade version is best. but when it comes to ports, i have to say both PSX and Sega Saturn are the closest to the arcade version, they play, look and sound great but the loading times are abysmal in these ports, they are as bad as "MK Trilogy". The MS-DOS version is probably the best way to play it today, fast loading times, looks really good, runs very smoothly in DOSBox and plays great. the only issue with the DOS version is the music, is kinda lackluster, i think in the settings there's sound options that might improve it.
aside from that i had no issues setting it up in DOSBox and it plays great.
Primal Rage 2020-12-03 1 point
For those of you who are experiencing an issue - it's because if you look at the dosbox.conf file (all the way at the bottom) - it's expecting it to be installed in a specific directory -
So change it to whatever directory ...
(Change USERNAME to whatever the user name is... assuming you just unzipped it on your Desktop)
Like:
imgmount E C:\users\USERNAME\DESKTOP\PRIMAL~1\PRIMAL~1\CD\ragecd.iso -t iso
MOUNT D C:\users\USERNAME\DESKTOP\PRIMAL~1\PRIMAL~1\C
D:
RAGE.BAT
emu_gamer 2019-03-30 1 point DOS version
i scanned this on virustotal (https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/4102226532dd4ccfb8beead997552eca5329092e023b24bd3a89a5cdb5fd5a19/detection) and it got a hit from NANO-Antivirus saying it had Virus.Dos.Gen-Crypt.ccnk, is that a dos virus?
Reptilius 2019-03-26 -2 points
How do i play? I kinda download this on Andrpid and im wondering how to open it. Any emulator suggestions?
ely 2016-07-31 -2 points
Cant even install it, there are no instructions on how. It seems to want to open but then closes, so confused, where are the instructions?
dino king101 2014-12-14 -3 points DOS version
Look up bestinslot he has a 1episode play through of it check it out
Brewpub420 2013-11-09 0 point DOS version
I used to play the shit out of this. It was the main game , at least the only one that ever worked right , on the short lived Sega Channel for the Genesis system. Ahhh...memories.
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DOS Version
84 MB3DO Version
- Year: 1995
- Publisher: LG Electronics Inc., LG Electronics U.K. Ltd
- Developer: Atari Games Corporation
Amiga ROM
- Year: 1995
- Publisher: Time Warner Interactive Ltd.
- Developer: Atari Games Corporation
Game Gear ROM
- Year: 1995
- Publisher: Time Warner Interactive Inc.
- Developer: Atari Games Corporation
Genesis ROM
- Year: 1995
- Publisher: Tec Toy Indústria de Brinquedos S.A., Time Warner Interactive Inc.
- Developer: Atari Games Corporation
Jaguar ROM
- Year: 1995
- Publisher: Time Warner Interactive Inc.
- Developer: Atari Games Corporation
SEGA 32X ROM
- Year: 1995
- Publisher: SEGA of America, Inc.
- Developer: Atari Games Corporation
SEGA Saturn ROM
- Year: 1996
- Publisher: Time Warner Interactive Inc.
- Developer: Atari Games Corporation
304 MB
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